a fresh look at disabled children

 

There was a time in America when children that had autism were described as “retarded”. Thanks to the efforts of people like Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the “r” word has become politically incorrect. Ms. Shriver established the Special Olympics in 1968, which helped to create a more favorable image of people with disabilities. However, it was not until the passage of the Individuals with Disability Act in 1989 that formal programs for persons with disabilities were established.

 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/08/spread-word.html

There are a variety of conditions that would be considered “disabilities”, but the most common ones are Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism. Regardless of the specific malady, though, individuals with mental (and sometimes physical) disabilities were considered “retarded” in the past, and some still are today.

 To make things a little more confusing, you need to understand that there are FIVE different types of autism:

1 – Classical autism

2 – Asperser’s Syndrome

3- Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD-NOS)

4 – Rett’s Syndrome

5 – Childhood disintegrative disorder.

https://www.autism360.com/types-of-autism/#:~:text=Key%20Types%20of%20Autism%201%20Asperger%E2%80%99s.%202%20Pervasive,Disintegrative%20Disorder.%204%20Rett%E2%80%99s%20Syndrome.%205%20Classical%20Autism.

Jodi Picoult is one of our favorite authors, but her stories would not be considered “light reading” since they all deal with serious topics. Her 2010 novel, “House Rules”, centered on a young man who had Asperger’s.

 There actually ARE people who believe that inoculation cause autism, but that is absolutely NOT TRUE.

Being afflicted with Asperger’s is not necessarily a bad thing, since the individual involved can still accomplish amazing things. Two of the individuals that have the disease are well known to the public.

One of them is Greta Thunberg, who started sitting outside the Swedish Parliament on Friday afternoons when she was 15 years old to call attention to the dangers of global warming.

 https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2019/05/sweet-little-16.html

 She’s spoken to the U.K House of Parliament and the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland. She has also berated the billionaires at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and she has also met with the Pope (who’s written a book about climate change titled Laudato Si). On 24 November 2018, she spoke at TEDxStockholm

 Inspired by the survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, she began a weekly schoolwork strike every Friday, turning to social media to implore politicians to support and take steps toward halting carbon emissions.

 After she spoke at the U.N. Climate Conference, her followers on Twitter exploded, and now number over 600.000. She also has 1.6 million followers on Instagram. On March 15, an estimated 1.6 million people in 133 countries participated in a climate strike inspired by her solo action.   In March 2019, three members of the Norwegian parliament nominated Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

In 2019, she was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

The other person that you will recognize just hosted Saturday Night Live.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/05/09/elon-musk-hosts-snl/

 His name is Elon Musk.

Born in South Africa in 1971, he later moved to Canada, where he married a Canadian singer known by the stage name of Grime.

His business career has been VERY busy.

At the ago of 24, he and his brother started a company called , which was sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. The same year, he founded a company called ban x.com , which later became PayPal, which sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

In 2002, he founded Space X, which recently started sending astronauts into space.

In 2005, he joined the electric car company Tesla as chairman and product architect.

In 2006, he helped create SolarCity,   which was eventually merged to Tesla to become Tesla Energy.

In 2015, he founded OpenAI, a company that promotes artificial intelligence.

In 2016, he started Neuralink, a company that focuses on brain-computer interfacing.

The same year, he started The Boring Company, a tunnel construction company.

As of May 8 of this year, he is worth $183.9 billion, just below Jeff Bezos, who is worth $200 billion.

For a retarded kid, I think he’s done pretty well.